Leviathan
The weather was turning. The morning was warmer than any over the last three months. Spring was on the way, a season of hope and rebirth. It made it all the more ironic that I stood beside a grave.
Rainier and two other men lowered Stephen’s body into the pit we’d dug.
Dozens of people stood around the small graveyard, heads bowed.
Stephen had been well-known and well-liked in Hidden Grove.
Other than the few supply runs Rainier made every month, Stephen had been our main source of outside items. For years, he’d smuggled in things that were deemed less important than the flour, canned food, sugar, clothing, and repair supplies Rainier brought back.
Bringing in comic books for kids—and some adults—books, candy, toys, and other items. He was a bit like Santa Claus in that way.
People were always happy to see him coming, because he’d have something fun in the giant backpack he always carried.
Grinding my teeth together, I watched Rainier scoop up clods of dirt and toss them into the grave.
I’d already said a few words, and the crowd began to disperse back to town.
This poor man had been part of our community.
He’d only come around every now and then, preferring the open road to typical town or city life, but he had been an honorary member of our village.
This would not stand. I wouldn’t allow it to stand.
It was bad enough that the Red Maw was spying on us and probing our defenses.
This? This was something else. An escalation.
I didn’t start this, but by God, I would end it.
Rainier handed the shovel to another man. My beta tilted his head to the side, gesturing for me to follow him. I gave Stephen’s body one last look before turning to join him.
“Got more news from our scouts this morning,” Rainier said once we were out of earshot.
“What is it?” I grumbled. The look on his face told me I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say.
“Boyd found more tracks,” Rainier said.
I snorted a derisive laugh. “Well, damn, Rain, we find more tracks every fucking day. What’s the big deal?”
“They weren’t on the edge of Hidden Grove,” he said. “He caught a scent and followed it. By the time he got to the end of the trail, it was on the outer edges of Idlewild.”
“What? Are you serious?”
Rainier nodded, kicking at a stone. “He confirmed the tracks were there, and they had the Red Maw scent. Says it looked like at least three wolves had stalked around the edge of town before leaving. He lost their trail on the way back, though. They did lots of creek crossings like they usually do.”
Idlewild? What the hell were they doing there? It was one thing to attack or threaten our little village. We were small and isolated, cut off from civilization. We didn’t even have cell service. But Idlewild? That was an honest-to-God town.
“Do you think Desdemona has her eyes on Idlewild as well?” I asked.
“She’d have to be crazy,” Rainier said.
“I think we’ve established that she is. Crazy or power hungry—both are bad.”
“Yeah, but that pack is way bigger than ours,” Rainier said, shaking his head, and sending furtive glances toward the surrounding forest. “Red Maw is much bigger than we thought, but they still won’t be a match for Idlewild.”
“That’s what I’d think too,” I said, but my voice was hollow.
If the Red Maw had their sights set on attacking or taking over Idlewild, then June might be in danger.
Even thinking of her sent a jagged bolt of pain through my heart.
But pain or not, I still loved her, still cared about her, and as hurt as I was, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.
“What do you want to do?” Rainier asked.
“What I want to do is gather up a posse and go kick Desdemona’s pack in the teeth,” I said, clenching my jaw as I spoke.
“You and I both know we don’t have the numbers for that,” Rainier said. “There’s no way.”
“Yeah, I know,” I muttered. “I said what I’d want to do, not what I was going to do.”
If we attacked Red Maw, we’d need help, but where would we get that? I’d spent damn near a hundred years making sure no one knew about Hidden Grove, which meant we had no allies. Who the hell would help us in a fight?
Rather than try to work through those thoughts, I changed the subject. “Has anyone said anything about Stephen dying?”
Rainier heaved a sigh. “Yeah. I think everyone knows something is up now. There were already questions about why we were doing so many patrols. Now they’re all terrified. Pretty sure everybody understands it’s the Red Maw at this point.”
I nodded along, unsurprised. I’d known it would be difficult to keep this a secret, especially with how bold Desdemona’s men were getting.
“All right, I think it’s time I put together a council. A group of senior pack members to discuss our issues.”
“A council of elders? Is that what you mean?” Rainier frowned. “We’ve never had that here.”
“I know, but it’s time. The pack needs a better understanding of what’s going on, plus it will help take some of the burden off me and you.”
“Can’t say I would hate that,” Rainier said with a wry laugh.
“I’ll give you some names,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll say yes. We’ll meet tonight.” Glancing over, I watched as the last few shovels full of dirt were cast onto the grave. Stephen’s backpack sat beside the makeshift headstone. I pointed at it. “Has anyone gone through that yet?”
“Nope. Want to do the honors?”
Sighing, I walked over.
The pack had been found several yards from where we’d discovered his body, obviously tossed aside in an attempt to lighten his load and evade his pursuer. It hadn’t helped—no human could hope to outrun a shifter in their wolf form.
Unbuckling the top, I reached in and began to take out the items. A few pairs of socks and underwear, a couple shirts.
Rain pants and jacket. Dried fruit and jerky, a pair of sunglasses, and a fairly hefty bag of marijuana.
In the second compartment I found a few of his trade items. Magazines and coloring books wrapped in plastic to keep moisture away, a small package of plastic building block toys, three small cartons of crayons, a pack of condoms, and a bag filled with assorted candy bars, gum, and lollipops.
Deep at the bottom, my fingers brushed a hardcover book.
“Did our boy Stephen keep a diary?” Rainier said, frowning at the ancient-looking book in my hands. “Didn’t seem the type.”
I shook my head and turned it over in my hands. “No, this is old. Antique.” I pointed at the embossed gold stamp on the bottom. “I know this brand. It was popular when I was a kid. They made notebooks, journals, desk blotters, all that stuff.”
I opened the cover. A name had been scrawled on the top left corner of the first page: Fenwyn MacTire.
“Why does that name sound familiar?” I whispered.
“Well, it should,” Rainier said. “He’s only the most famous shifter historian.”
Snapping my head around, I looked at him, my brows furrowed. “What?”
“Didn’t you learn about that guy as a kid?” Rainier looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Uh…no.”
He sighed and shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. He was only really starting to publish books and stuff around the time you would have been becoming an adult. Anyway, he’s known as the preeminent shifter historian of all time.
” He ran a finger along the page. “If this is really his personal journal, then Stephen had a hell of an expensive item here. Dude probably could have gotten a few thousand dollars for this thing.”
I grunted and turned the page. When I saw what was on the next side, I froze, eyes going wide.
“No shit,” Rainier said.
On the other page was a handwritten table of contents.
The first entry was for something called Mating Ceremonies of Shifters.
The second was for Standard Folk Tales of Shifters.
It was the third and final entry on the list that had caught both my and Rainier’s attention.
The Reincarnation Phenomenon in the Shifter Species.
“Interesting,” I said as I flipped through the book.
Most of the later pages were blank, but the first few were filled with spiky, cursive script. The last chapter cut off mid-sentence. Whatever this Fenwyn person had been working on had been interrupted. Perhaps this was the last thing he’d been writing when he died?
As I scanned the words, I found information I’d heard since I was a child.
It is a well-known and well-discussed phenomenon among shifter circles that reincarnation does happen—quite often, in fact.
However, the actual scientific or magical process by which this occurs is still unknown.
It is theorized that it is magical in nature, as it happens with much more frequency than in humans, and even more frequently among the wolf breed of shifters.
I’ve found that this phenomenon is interpreted differently depending on where the shifter pack is located.
A regional belief system often skews the reality of the phenomenon in some places.
For instance, shifters in certain European and Caribbean locations believe that a reincarnated shifter is a shadow of the person who came before and adds to the current incarnation’s personality in subtle, almost imperceptible ways.
On the opposite end of this spectrum are the shifters of north central portions of North America and Canada, who believe the reincarnation to be a living entity that resides within the host that can influence and, in some instances, return to full sentience under the right circumstances.
Both of these, as well as other tales, have become little more than folk tales, but in more remote cultures they still hold sway.
Most of these beliefs stem from the deep-seated cultural laws about something shifters called Fated Mates, a magical process by which two shifters are mated together forever.
It is a bond much stronger than a typical romantic relationship and thought to extend all the way to the incarnate soul itself.